Time and Space

It is these two juxtaposing themes that have me all tangled up inside. Time and space. They seem cruel to the self that I carry around inside of my frame, weighing me down to the earth, and there is no escape. Through flights of fancy and dreaming I suppose I have had moments of reprieve, but overall I have to come down and face the fire of my living in time and space.

I vent frustration with it by flying through my voice, defying and deafening the odds against me. I float, I flutter, I dive, and I soar. The voice is a wonderful thing and its beauty becomes me. But time, like a robotic jailer keeps bringing me back into space. I get depressed sometimes when I can't sing anymore. When I ache from being in one position too long or my fingers are stiff from holding onto my basic chords too long. I loath, oh!, how I loath to come down back into my skin and bones.

So the question for me becomes, how do I sing through my life? How do I make the song work for me from eight until five? Maybe I am just creating more havoc on my wee little heart by trying to make it from eight until five. What if, gasp, I am not created for that world?

I suppose of the things that I am most certain of in life, this is the paramount thing: I was created to sing. When it all began, I was a song, and when it will all end I will become, again, the never ending melody that I have heard through my life in underground currents of rhythm and harmony. It is the in between time that is killing me.

Time and space, humans and place! Why do you keep me locked up? What if it is me that is denying my own self the freedom of choice, the freedom of song? What if I am the robotic jailer of my heart? It seems congruent with the rest of the discoveries in my life.

"A mirrored jar, with the lid on tight"

In darkness and in light
In capabilities and in fright
I sing, I sing, I sing.

The Annual Birthday Blog

This year its differant. This year there is hope and spring in the air. This year I am not holding my breath waiting for something spectacular to happen. It's happening. I'm living for the first time in my life from a deep place in my heart that was recently brought to life by the Living God and there really is nothing more to say about it.

So much has happened in the last 3 months (I've only been here for 3 months!!!). I feel like my life is just beginning. Like I have so much potential and hope for that potential to actually turn into reality.

I am thankful. I am 29. Amazing.

I can't sleep

So, here I am again. It's late. I want to sleep, but it is not happening for me at the moment. I say and FEEL such dramatic things when I am PMSing. I end relationships, I cry about things lost, I make broad sweeping statements that may or may not be true...oh wait...I do that all the time.

As you may have picked up: I am PMSing. It really is amazing. Some people think I should get on birth control because I have such intense PMS. I, don't think of me as sick, sort of like my broad mood swings. It sort of defines me. I cringe as I write this. Am I going to hate myself in the morning for what I am saying now? I already sent a myspace message tonight that I am going to regret (speaking of ending relationships) later.

Anyway, as I was saying. Mood swings. If I can warn people in advance perhaps they are not so bad? Okay. So I know that ALL of my roommates would STRONGLY disagree with me. Even if you warn people that you are PMSing or whatever, feelings still get hurt. But why should a person go on meds just to prevent feelings from getting hurt? I don't know. I don't think that it is the solution that I am looking for at the moment. I think I need to eat better and stay away from artifical hormones that are snuck into our foods.

I did have milk this week. That must be it!

What can I give that is extravegent, but not self-gratifying? Is it possible to give without feeling a sense of self-gratification for giving? I hate that about myself. Here's a little tidbit: I love to give because it feels so good. But when I can't give something, I often times can't figure out my role. I give when I don't have anything to give, because I at least have a role. Sick. I know. What is even more sick is when I realize this about certian people in my life that I have been doing this to. I often times have no other foundation for relationship with those people and when my ability to give is taken away or limited, I become insecure and usually don't have much desire to relate with that person anymore. Yes. I am that shallow. When there is nothing left for me to give, more often then not, I walk away.

I think that the older I get the less I want to play ball. Meaning. I have less and less patience for relationships with the opposite sex. Period. Don't get me wrong. I throughly enjoy the opposite sex. But I am rarely impressed, and I like to be impressed. Not that any man is wanting to impress me. I just appreciate the novelty of being impressed by a man. Of getting a glimpse of the Image that he is bearing (or trying to bear in honesty). I think I also get very annoyed that "guys" my age are still playing the game with girls that are younger and younger. I am annoyed that I get so annoyed about it. Who cares? I guess I do. I want them to have to grow up too! I feel like my leash has been considerably shortened, why not theirs? And here I am again trying to play Holy Spirit.

Do you know that I have had almost every single guy from my bloody past contact me in one way or another in the last year? Like obsure crushes too. And every single one of them has gotten promptly booted out of my life. It's like I've had to cut every single tie. Severely. I hate admitting this, but I think the older men and woman get, the less they are really allowed to be "friends". Unless there are some pretty clear bounderies. But "buddies" doesn't cut it after a certain age. I guess I'm just too interested in sex to play stupid mind games, and be "buddies" with anyone. Hence the great CLEARING OUT of my sorted history.

Here's to a clean slate and no more "buddies"!

Proximity

I should be in bed, but I figured I'd write a little something. Something about proximity and what it has done to me.

I have been back in KC for a little over a month now and oh what a change. I was talking to a friend the other day about proximity. About how it amazes me that so much can change due to it.

There is so much that I don't understand, but still, in a much more profound way, somehow I am resting and trusting more than I have in a long time. It's like when you've just been through a battle and all you want to do is rest and you don't care where or how. That is sort of how I feel. I've had pictures of myself in this season. It's one of a child that is dirty and shell shocked. Rubbish all around, disoriented and deaf. I know that might seem a bit extreame, but, I suppose, in matters of the heart its very subjective.

Anyway. Proximity. It does the heart wonders. I have hope again, unlike many past seasons of my life. I really do feel like some big changes are coming.

The other day I was sitting at the House of Prayer (can you believe it?! I couldn't either) and I had this simple, yet one of the dearest times I've ever had with Jesus. "I am the Resurrection and the Life" he said. And for the first time in a long time, I believe him.

I was sick, but I had to die in order for all the Glory to go to Jesus. He said, "Roll the stone away." It's time.

Roll that bad boy away.

Floating

Do you ever feel like you are floating? Sometimes when I sit real still I feel this turning inside of me. Like I am trying to get out of my own skin. It is a very strange feeling. I feel like that when I'm about to get a migrane sometimes, or when I'm coming down from one. I don't feel a headache coming, but I am exhausted.

I heard about someone I love the other night. Someone who meant the world to me. I heard they were in town (the town in which I now reside, Kansas City btw). I heard they had called an old friend to talk. I have carried them in my heart for years.

I don't think I am safe for this person any longer. But, since knowing them I have wanted to become a safe person for others like them.

I can't live in regret about the foolishness of my youth any more than the next person. I have been living out the consequences of that and much more. I don't know what else it will take for me to become safe, but I am guessing it has to do with me owning stuff and risking and being more open then I have been.

I hear his voice in my head sometimes, scoffing at my attempts, calling me trite. It is honestly the last thing I want to be, but in all of my desire to be sincere and genuine, I still hear it. Why does his opinion matter so much to me anyway? Even knowing that it did would piss him off. I can't please him. I never really realized this, but I've sort of been living a part of my life in the secret hope that one day he won't be indifferant toward me anymore. That he would care and like me again.

It's dumb. I know. He is one fucked up individual. I don't really understand why I should care. But I do. So there.

I'm an addict

Hey. So I'm writing you all of the sudden, because I stumbled across the blog I wrote about you so many years ago. I wanted to send you the best part of it, but also tell you that these things are still true about you. The reason I know this is because the things that were good in me at some point and no longer seem to be, are still good in me somewhere, even though I can't find them.

I just blew up at this guy I just met tonight. He pissed me off and I didn't stuff my feelings, I sort of let him have it. I just went to this seminar this weekend called, "The Genesis Process". It was started as a support system for drug and alcohol addicts, but has since filtered into where it is needed the most, churches. I have been avoiding any form of church lately. I am unhappy and unsatisfied. Sound familiar? I am moving back to Kansas City. I can hardly believe it, but I am dying out here and I can barely breath. I realized that I must have done some growing and feeling in the last 10 years of my life because, whereas before when I lived in the Northwest, so much of the stuff in Portland that makes it Portland wouldn't have bothered me. But now, I feel as if I have experienced more pain and hurt from people in this city then I ever have before. I just realized that I am a different person, not the same edges. but let me tell you some of those edges have come back, because I needed protection. These people are ruthless and mean. I have been ruthless and mean. I blew up at this guy tonight because he was condescending and wanted to pigeon hole my friends into a label, like "emergent church, charismatic" It made me soooooo freaking angry because I didn't feel heard, or cared for (Ironically he is going to be a pastor), I felt like he was just looking for an angle to dismiss what my friends are doing. I got angry because all of the sudden I felt what it was like to be on the other side of my pigeon holing and judgement passing. I literally wanted to scream at him.

I don't know why I am writing you, except that you are sort of this nebulous idea that sort of exists. I know that inside your heart is the same I know it to be. I also can imagine that you might not feel like that. Like you may feel like you are completely lost at sea and have no way of finding land again. I am feeling that way myself. Not to assume or anything, but after living out here for the last year and a half I can imagine that it has been really hard for you to find a safe place to grow and flourish and to be loved.

The reason I brought up this Genesis thing that I went to tonight was because in light of going to this inner healing type of a thing I completely lost it with a poor unsuspecting soul that just happened to be the wrong person for me to pass. At the seminar they talked all about neurochemicals and the limbic system and how they effect us at the base human level and cause us to break down and respond by using coping mechanisms, of course I loved that. I also had a memory of when I was a little girl my first best friend stole the jacket from my favorite stuffed dog (we had the same ones together). She lost her dogs jacket and so she took mine. I confronted her about it, but she lied and said it was hers and I must have lost mine. Well, I tried to get my parents to listen to me, but she was the associate pastor's daughter who did nothing wrong, so it turned out that I was the one that got into trouble. I made a vow after that that I would never trust a friend again, to never share what was mine again. Later it became that I would get really close to them, gain their trust, learn their secrets so that they couldn't leave me, so that I could control.

I don't know if it is appropriate for me to apologize again, when I feel like I have done it a lot with you, but after seeing this in myself, you are sort of a safe place to start. Because you are far away and you can't hurt me.

I've pushed almost everyone I love away, systematically. I don't know if I ever told you this, but Amber and I were talking about you one night. This was a long time ago, I was living in the Bristol house. I was relaying something about what was going on with us and she asked me a question that I will never forget. She said, "Anna, what would you have to say to him if you weren't giving him advise all the time and tell him what he should do? What if you stopped giving advised and just talked about yourself?" I actually remember the change I tried to make after her saying that. I don't feel like I ever really trusted you with me. Not that it matters anymore. I am just saying.

So without further ado, here's hope, hopefully, for me and you.
He sauntered into my life a really confused boy who thought that if he could just look good and look like he was always having fun that no one would see the “cavernous depravity” that wracked his soul, mind, heart, spirit. I am astounded at what God can do to a human in such a short amount of time. He opened up his heart in ways he never knew he could and found life there. He opened his life to people on levels he didn’t even know existed and he turned and turned and turned until he discovered that he had been twisted into a horrible disfiguring knot of humanity and then he broke. He broke at the sight of his own bloody mess and found love waiting for him there. Love that began to untie and untwist and undo the years of injustice wrought on him by life and poor broken people who never knew any better. He all of the sudden began seeing with new eyes, it was like he woke up to these amazing depths that had always been there, but just could never have been recognized before. One day my friend got a real glimpse into eternity and he has never been the same again. I don’t know if it was the drizzly night we stood outside of a kinko’s on the Plaza and I talked to him about the God of Revelations, the one enthroned in light, and with fire in his eyes…etc. but at some point he got it. At some point he began seeing that he had an eternal purpose on the earth and that he had a voice that Jesus gave only to him, and that he had a role to fill so that people who were broken like himself could find healing too. He found confidence, and OHHH what a difference that made in him. He began giving out of himself and speaking life into the hearts of people all around him. He brought life and hope to strangers to whom he served coffee. And best of all, he didn’t know it. He had no idea how his life was affecting the people around him. He was never aware of how his negative actions affected people as well. But Jesus is sharing that with him now. He is showing him how to walk a life worthy of his calling, fully pleasing his Father in the process.

Jane Austen Strikes Fear

I watched a OPB special this evening. It is a Masterpiece series on Jane Austen and her works. Tonight happened to be, "Miss Austen Regrets". And OH how depressing. She dies, and there remains in her, till the end, the conflict of freedom vs. attachment, marriage.

My roommates commented on how much I reminded them of her, not necessarily of her brilliance in writing, but of her propensity to flirt shamelessly with ridicules crushes and to use humor as a defense. I have this grip of fear in my gut when I hear things like that. Anything that attaches me to anything I don't want to be makes me incredibly nervous. Somehow I think that the mere suggestion might make it so. It's like when you were making faces as a child and someone said that your face would become stuck there if you sneeze (or whatever it was that they said to get you to stop). I feel like people have power over my future sometimes when they compare. Silly I know, but true nonetheless.

I have yet to learn that I am the one with the power in my own life. You wouldn't think it so hard for a woman of almost thirty to figure that out. And yet I still wonder who will say that magic word that will turn me from an ugly duckling to a swan. That moment when someone will hear me singing and call for me to let down my hair.

I was thinking about living in the present moment today. Something I am not good at, at all. I was thinking of what it would be like to finally have the opportunity to live where I want to be right now. I wondered if I would ever be satisfied with the present. I think one must become comfortable within their own present state before they ever become comfortable with being in a moment with anyone else.

The wisest, most profound and powerful people I have met are people who live their lives in such moments. The mundane moments, the exciting moments, the sorrowful ones, as well as the joyful. Here they live. Experiencing the fullness of life, while I just wish and pine for something better. These are the people that scare me. The ones that can look the moment dead in the eye and embrace it. Cherish it. Put it in their pocket and carry it, fingering it from time to time. Moving from one to another with grace and ease, with poise and confidence.

Jane Austen strikes fear in me, because I fear that I am like her. I think she created people and moments in her head that never had the chance to walk off the page.

unrequited love

am I a victim of a serial disease? This strain, this frustration, this longing? Or is it an addiction to pain and lonliness? My "crushes" have been the stain on pages and pages of my journals. Annoyingly persistant and pessimistic. I know going into it that: a: I can't be trusted, and b: you will have to turn me away before the end. This is my disfunction. My disease.

One of them at least.

How do I get out? It isn't like an abusive relationship with someone I can walk away from. It's me. I have to live inside my own skin. I have to deal with these thoughts and emotions daily. I have to all at once stand up to the abuser (read: me) and stop abusing (read: me). Talk about confusing and constantly dangerous.

I live in fear of myself. Of my sexuality, of my fierceness, of my double-mindedness. I think that this past year of my life has drug me to the lowest places I have ever been inside myself. I don't see a way out. I'm trapped in here with no light, with no door. It's dark and cold and lonely and I'm not great company when I am afraid.

I am afraid to move back to Kansas City. I am afraid that I will end up in some "friendship" with a guy that means more to me than it ever will to him. I am afraid that I will not be able to say no. I am afraid that I will always end up in this pattern and never find out what it is to be unafraid and fully loved. I am afraid to move back because what if I don't really belong there either? What if I am just going back because I couldn't fit in here. Didn't want to fit in here. What if all of this is a trick? I don't know where to go. I don't know where I belong.

I had a dream that I keep remembering. It was a long time ago. I drempt I was in this building where I used to go to church. I would sit down in one seat and a few minutes later I would find something wrong with it and have to get up and move. I did this for a vast majority of the dream. The only other thing I can remember from it is that at the end I was painting the back of a school bus with red paint.

I used to do that in church. I couldn't find the right seat, so I would move. I can't just do that in my life anymore. I realize now I have been doing it for years. Even when I lived in Kansas City. I would move communities like I moved seats. Then I exhausted all of those options and I moved cities. There are no attractive communities that I have found here which is why I want to leave. But now I am too afraid to leave because of my past.

All of this probably has some deep connection to my obsession with pain and lonliness. With my attachment disorder and the reason why I attach myself to guys that are safe because they will never attach back.

Hello, my name is Anna. I have deep mother wounds that have kept me moving around my whole life. What's your story?

Sickness and disappointment. Similar diseases. Each letting me like leaches on my skin. I'm too weak to fight either of them alone anymore. My chosen partners are no where to be found. Too far away to know. I'm stopped up inside because of all of this. Not knowing where I even belong anymore. So tired of running from here to there. Looking for some kind of home, or simblence of home. I'm trying to rest inside, trying to accept what has been left to me by my storm beaten life. Trying to weather this next storm, these raging seas inside tumbling, twisting, churning. Don't know if I will make it. Don't think my ship can take it. tired of fighting, am I.